A look at the path ahead for health care reform

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A look at the path ahead for health care reform

Hurdles await Republican effort to repeal and replace ObamaCare; reaction and analysis on 'The Fox News Specialists'

This is a rush transcript from "The Fox News Specialists," July 25, 2017. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

ERIC BOLLING, CO-HOST: Well, hello, everyone. I'm Eric Bolling -- that was new, along with Kat Timpf and Eboni K. Williams. This is "The Fox News Specialists." Do it again. Repealing and replacing ObamaCare begins, regains a heartbeat in the senate with the chamber securing enough votes to begin debate on health care legislation, and it was an absolute nail-biter, 51 yes' to 50 no's. Do the math on that. Vice President Mike Pence had to cast the tiebreaker. It also saw the emotional return of Senator John McCain to the floor following his brain cancer diagnosis along with some vintage McCain remarks. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, R-ARIZ.: Make no mistake, my service here is the most important job I've had in my life. And I'm so grateful, so grateful to the people of Arizona for the privilege, for the honor of serving here and the opportunities it gives me to play a small role in the history of the country that I love. I voted for the motion to proceed to allow debate to continue on amendments we offer. I will not vote for this bill as it is today. It's a shell of a bill right now. We all know that. I have changes urged by my state's governor that will have to be included to earn my support for final passage of any bill. If this process ends in failure, which seems likely, then let's return to regular order. We've been spinning our wheels on too many important issues because we keep trying to find a way to win without help from across the aisle.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: Looking good, senator. And during a news conference with Lebanon's prime minister a short time ago, President Trump praised today's progress in the senate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I'm extremely happy that we got this vote. This is -- they say if you look historically, this is the tough vote to get. Now we're all going to sit together and we're going to try and come up with something that's really spectacular. We have a lot of options. I want to just thank some of the Republican senators who were really fantastic in getting us here, particularly, John McCain for making the trip. But I think you're going to have a great health care. This is the beginning of the end for the disaster known as ObamaCare.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: All right, Eboni. Wow, 50-50 tie.

EBONI K. WILLIAMS, CO-HOST: Wow.

BOLLING: The vice president breaks the tie.

WILLIAMS: Yeah. I think we'll see a lot of that. Look, I think for sure everybody was so happy to see John McCain out there demonstrating that type of leadership. And I take the senator in his word that right now, as it stands, this is not going to get his support, this current bill. But I'm not mad at him pushing forward, Eric, for discussion. That's it, discussion to get some health care that makes America, certainly, great again.

BOLLING: And Kat, now we know why Senator McCain made that, you know, trek across the country. He cast the 50th vote that put it to a sign.

KATHERINE TIMPF, CO-HOST: Yeah. And it was -- his speech was inspiring. Everything he said about, you know, bipartisanship needing to happen, the hostility needing to end, casting that vote. None of us are ever allowed to call in sick to work ever again, ever, ever again. I mean, that was amazing. But, yeah, it was a nail biter. And like you said, though, long road ahead. But it's good that they can discuss it.

BOLLING: Yeah. We're going to get into some of what they're going to be discussions. Let's meet today's specialist. She appeared on MTV's The Real World, he's married to Wisconsin congressman, Sean Duffy, she speaks to college forums about American capitalism and the American dream. Do we have music? Do we really have music?

TIMPF: A lot of changes. A lot of changes.

(LAUGHTER) BOLLING: . loving to cook, Rachel Campos-Duffy is here.

(CROSSTALK) BOLLING: And he has spent 24 years with the Milwaukee police department, was the 2015 recipient of the conservative political action conference award, and he's the current sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, so naturally he specializes in everything law enforcement, Sheriff David Clarke is here. Let's get right to it. Senate majority leader sounded off about the path ahead for the health care debate just a short time ago. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, R-KY., MAJORITY LEADER: This is just the beginning. We're not out here to spike the football, this is a long way. But we'll finish at the end of the week hopefully with a measure that can either go to the house and be taken up, or go to conference.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: All right, sheriff, as Eboni points out, they have a lot of work to do going forward, but they made it over the first hurdle.

DAVID CLARKE, MILWAUKEE COUNTY SHERIFF: Well, they had 6 to 7 years to get over that first hurdle. This has been a disaster from a P.R. perspective. I think a P.R. would say that. Look, in golf, there's this thing called a mulligan, right? You had a bad shot, you get to do it over, but this is about their fourth mulligan. And the American people if you look at the polling, they're tired of all the back and forth. And they know ObamaCare is headed off a cliff. They know it's been a disaster. They want it fixed. But the stuff, the way it goes on in the senate and Washington, D.C., it's all this political fear that goes on. And in the end, it just takes too long to get this done. But I don't know how much longer they have, really, the GOP, I'm talking about. I don't know how much longer they have before the American people just kind of get tired of it.

BOLLING: Rachel, we pointed out that you're married to a congressman, you're on ObamaCare. What do you think of it?

RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I'm on ObamaCare -- can I just one thing about being on ObamaCare? One thing that people don't understand is that when congress voted to put itself on ObamaCare, the Obama administration and the Obama family carved themselves out of it. So when you say those videos of Michelle Obama signing her family up for ObamaCare, it was all fake. They are not on ObamaCare. But congress is. So this is personal to me, and I'm happy to see that we're one step forward. Look, it was on life support. No question about it. John McCain is a war hero. He takes a lot of grief from the Republican base. He was a hero today. He is the one who kept this thing alive today.

BOLLING: Eboni.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: To live another day.

BOLLING: . I have a niece on ObamaCare, and I have family members in -- they hate it. They can't stand it. The penalties, the deductions, it's awful for them. She keeps telling me, we need to get something to replace it. But the problem is I'm not sure what the Republicans have to replace it. Is it going to be any better?

WILLIAMS: That's the problem, Eric. You know I opted out of ObamaCare. I was one of those people that just said I'm not paying a premium that I find unaffordable and I thought the coverage was lackluster. So I'm all about a better solution. As the sheriff points out, seven years later, here we are with no viable replacement plan. So for those that are completely dissatisfied, Rachel, with ObamaCare, I've got to tell you, it's not particularly comforting to hear this, give us two more years to find something to replace it with. I mean, certainly, people are afraid that it could go from bad to worse.

BOLLING: Now Kat, so they made the first hurdle, so debate is open. Senator Rand Paul this morning, tweeted in a series of tweets to this morning, senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, inform him, inform me, that the plan for today was to take up the 2015 clean repeal bill as he's urged. And this is something we've been talking about here. Rand Paul was told by Mitch McConnell that the clean repeal bill will at least be an option.

TIMPF: Right, absolutely. But again, we'll have those same problems as we had before this vote. In a way it's the first hurdle, but in a way it's kind of not because we've already seen what it looks like when they try to come up with a replacement. I don't know, guys, we all seem to notice that they're having a tough time because the differences, some people think it doesn't go far enough, some people say it goes too far. How do you reconcile that no matter how much time you have, no matter if you have seven more years. How do you reconcile that?

WILLIAMS: I was going to say, Eric, two senators, of course, still not even moving forward to discussion. I mean, to highlight Kat's point of how far apart they are.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: But a lot of talk about Republicans. I mean, the Dems gave us this mess that not even this Democrat will purchase.

WILLIAMS: What Democrat?

CAMPOS-DUFFY: Independent, fine. OK. Independent, I'm sorry. OK. I'm sorry about that. Well, independent, she will not purchase ObamaCare. I don't want ObamaCare. But where are the Democrats? Where is their responsibility in this?

BOLLING: The reason why it's failing it's because premiums are sky rocketing, because people were doing exactly what Eboni said she was going to do. She was in to opt out, pay the penalty, and not pay for ObamaCare. Therefore everyone else.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: Because grandmas and single people are being forced to buy coverage that includes maternity care when I know I need maternity coverage, but there's other people who don't. I mean, people want options. People want choices. And the Democrats also have to be held responsible for why -- I mean, I understand Sheriff Clarke here, you're upset at the Republicans. I am, too. But there is an obstructionist force. People who won't vote.

WILLIAMS: But Rachel, let me stop you right there. I hear the obstructionist thing. I wasn't impressed with Obama making obstructionist arguments. I'm not impressed with the Republican making one now. Because when you're a leader and you control both chambers of congress and the White House, it's your job to, what, work around obstruction. So the GOP has got to get at least on the same page as Kat's points out time and time again, before I think you have the audacity to ask the Dems for anything, quite frankly.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: But if I wreck the car, if I run it in the ditch as President Obama said, I can't just sit back and make fun of why you can't fix it.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLLING: Politically, let's just say all these things are true, politically. Now this could -- be expensive and I get push-back from a lot of people when I suggest this. Let -- back away from the table now. Say, you know, we couldn't pass clean repeal. We couldn't pass skinny health care. We couldn't pass full health care repeal and replace. Back away. And then you're stuck with ObamaCare. And honestly, it fails. It falls upon itself. I mean, half the country will have one or no insurers.

CLARKE: It's a dangerous game to play politically, though. You know what I mean?

BOLLING: Of course.

CLARKE: What can the Republicans do? And I'm not just hammering on them. But, you know what? They're in the driver's seat right now. They can get this thing done. They can fix it. We all know it needs to be fixed. Why can they get 50 votes on? If you have to have Vice President Pence coming in and casting the deciding vote, fine. But they don't seem to be able to get to 50 within.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLLING: Yeah, 51 votes, 18 months ago for a clean repeal.

CLARKE: There were several people who voted for that thing in 2015 that voted against it this time. That's been the messy, ugly part of it. But, you know, this is kind of the personality that the American people -- and I'm at ground level, but this is how they see Washington, D.C., just this big mess, not much gets done, a lot of in-fighting, a lot of political bickering. I understand that environment. OK. But at the end of the day, the American people want something done. And right now, the GOP is in the driver's seat, so then -- to fix this thing.

BOLLING: Kat, what do you think we should do?

TIMPF: Repealing it is getting something done. I just want to go to -- back to Rachel's point in terms of saying they crashed this car and now it's not fair to have us fix it.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: I didn't say that. I said they should be helping to fix it.

TIMPF: OK. But there's clearly ideological differences between Democrats and Republicans. Clearly, they're not going to decide on the same solution to fix it. I assume the Democrats would have more government involvement rather than less. But the difference is, because Republicans ran on saying let us fix it, we can fix it.

(CROSSTALK)

TIMPF: You don't advertise being a body shop that can fix a car, and once it get there, if you're all just arguing about how to fix it, sorry, the car is not ready, I know it's been seven years, it's a long time.

BOLLING: Move the ball. You're the quarterback. You're Mitch McConnell, leader of the senate. Where do you take this debate going forward from here?

TIMPF: It's tough. And I think it's tough because the GOP also seems to have a bit of an identity crisis in terms of who they are.

BOLLING: True.

(CROSSTALK) WILLIAMS: Can I say this, Kat?

BOLLING: I'm trying to get everyone out -- to realize that this is.

WILLIAMS: This is what it is. OK. So Kat, you say it's ideological. I totally agree with you. I also literally think it is rhetorical. When you have a Chuck Schumer, to your point, Rachel, saying we know that there are problems with the Affordable Care Act. We know that there are problems with ObamaCare. Bill Clinton on the campaign trail saying it's a disaster. I think that there's an awareness. I think the problem is with the rhetoric. If you call it straight up repeal and replace, you're not going to have any Democratic buy-in. That's just the flat out truth. Whether that's fair or not, that's the way it goes. If you call it revisiting or revamping or redeveloping ObamaCare or ACA, I actually think there's opportunity for buy-in.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLLING: So where would you go? I want to know.

WILLIAMS: I like Rachel's idea about -- let's talk about choices. Well, around -- say for instance there's no reason everybody in America should be paying for maternity coverage, right? If you know that you're at a place.

BOLLING: We're beyond that right now. Now, we're talking about -- here we are. Mitch McConnell called for a vote. He got his votes. Now he has to do something. What do my co-hosts think we should do? What should Mitch McConnell do?

TIMPF: I mean, in terms of what?

WILLIAMS: I have to weigh. I agree, step away.

(CROSSTALK)

CAMPOS-DUFFY: You know what I would do? If I was Mitch McConnell, I'd blow up the filibuster rule and get this thing going. That's what I will do.

BOLLING: That's an option.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: But, you know, that's going to tick off a lot of people. But I think this is what the American people voted for. And you know what? The American people don't understand all these precious rules of the senate.

BOLLING: Rachel Campos-Duffy, what do the Republicans do right now? They've got to do something in the next -- I don't know, week or so. What do they do? What's the right thing to do?

CAMPOS-DUFFY: The right thing to do is to repeal it. There's seems to be enough votes I think for that. Repeal it and you have to find a solution that -- to replace it. But you can't just go repeal and two years later.

BOLLING: No, no, you can't do that, Rachel.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: Yeah, I agree.

BOLLING: It's either repeal and replace later or come up with something different now.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: Or blow up the filibuster rule and just get this thing through.

WILLIAMS: Clean repeal you're saying.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: Yeah

TIMPF: I'll be furious if this ends up not getting repealed, and it looks like it's not going to. And I know that a lot of people feel that way. When you ask me what to do, it's kind of just like me in my head I just picture myself laying despontedly on the floor and giving up on everything. That's how desperate this is.

WILLIAMS: Eric, if they can't bring down the premiums.

(CROSSTALK) TIMPF: I know it's not an option.

CLARKE: Mitch McConnell.

TIMPF: . obviously repeal it. When you have the disagreements within the party, how do you solve that? Because people aren't budging.

BOLLING: That's what I'm asking.

CLARKE: Mitch McConnell is going to have to do some arm twisting. And he doesn't appear to me to have the will to be able to do that. A guy who's not fond of it had no really use for Harry Reid. He didn't seem to have these problems. He was able to keep everybody inside the corral when it came to issues like this.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: But the reason is because Democrats are collectivists. They do group things. On Obama says do this, they all do it. Guess what? Republicans by nature are individualized and they fight for their individual ideas.

BOLLING: They're asking me to get out of this segment, but this is my biggest problem with us, with cable news. Right here what we're doing right now, just complaining about where we are instead of saying, we're here now, now let's come up with ideas to get to the next step, to go forward. They're watching. They are watching. Senators right now are watching. The White House is watching. We need to come up with solutions, not just complain about.

WILLIAMS: Stop calling it straight repeal. Get off the rhetoric. Get to a solution. You can get the bipartisan buy-in, Eric. That brings the premiums down. Maybe that's a step forward.

CLARKE: You'll never get bipartisan buy-in.

(CROSSTALK)

CAMPOS-DUFFY: ObamaCare was designed to fail because they want single payer.

BOLLING: They do want that. All right, straight ahead, President Trump voicing disappointment with Jeff Sessions during a news conference this afternoon. Is time running out for Sessions as the attorney general? We're going to debate it when we come right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WILLIAMS: Attorney Jeff Sessions may be reaching for an extra-large box of Alka-Seltzer this afternoon. During his news conference with the Lebanon's prime minister, President Trump made it very clear where A.G. Sessions currently stand with him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I'm disappointed in the attorney general. He should not have recused himself almost immediately after he took office. And if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me prior to taking office and I would have quite simply picked somebody else. So I think that's a bad thing not for the president but for the presidency. I think it's unfair to the presidency. And that's the way I feel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAMS: And President Trump not stopping there. Also highlighting another issue of frustration with the A.G.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I want the attorney general to be much tougher on the leaks from intelligence agencies, which are leaking like rarely have they ever leaked before at a very important level. These are intelligence agencies. We cannot have that happen. We will see what happens. Time will tell.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAMS: OK. Eric Bolling, I want to have a better understanding as to what is at play right now. Let's back it up. The very first sitting United States senator to endorse President Trump as a candidate was Jeff Sessions. We know that loyalty means a lot to President Trump. We've been hearing that, and you've talked to him frequently. Can you explain to me why doesn't seem that loyalty that Sessions demonstrated to President Trump seems to be working in his favor?

BOLLING: Yeah. Here's exactly why. Everyone was like, why now, why now, this is six months into this. Here's exactly why now, because Jeff Sessions recusing himself after he was appointed attorney general has caused a.

WILLIAMS: Domino effect.

BOLLING: . domino effect that is metastasizing right now. Right now, not then, right now. What he did is he stepped aside. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, wasn't appointed by Donald Trump, ended up saying, hey, we're going to have a general counsel to investigate Russian. Not the Hillary Clinton leaks, or all the leaks, or the Hillary Clinton emails servers, or the collusion between Hillary and Russia. We're going to investigate the Trump Russian collusion problem. So now, Trump is going, really, OK, well, I wouldn't have appointed him if he was going to step down immediately and start this ball rolling. And now, Mueller is so -- no offense, senate Republicans and house Republicans are just as bad as Mueller investigating every aspect of the Trump campaign. How about focusing on something that we know went wrong? We know Hillary Clinton probably -- we don't know. We think she may have broken the law.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLLING: Her husband did board an airplane in Arizona. That could have been an obstruction of justice. And she did take part in a deal that sold uranium to the Russians. That's a lot of stuff that we know happened, and yet this witch hunt that keeps going on is all because Sessions recuse himself after he became.

WILLIAMS: Kat, let me ask you this. Let's conceit every single thing Eric just laid out there about Sessions, at least initiating that domino effect that caused a lot of angst for President Trump and his presidency as he points out. But why do it publicly? Why not have this be a closed-door situation where he sits Jeff Sessions down and says, buddy, what are you doing to me? Give me some relief here.

TIMPF: Absolutely. I can't think of a single situation in which you see a workplace where a boss keeps repeatedly, publicly humiliating one of his employees and be like, wow, things seem to be going well over there. I mean that's a disaster. I agree with everybody who wants to know why suddenly now. I mean, Sessions certainly hasn't done anything wrong. I get that. The pressure is ramping up and they have a special counsel and this and that and the other thing. But Sessions didn't really do any of that. If he's taking out his anger on him, I don't know. But to do it publicly, I've absolutely no clue why you would do that. You don't air your dirty laundry. He's just like walking around, Eric, with only dirty laundry all the time talking about this. I don't see the benefit.

WILLIAMS: Sheriff, you have deputies that work for you and for your department, it represent you. If one of them either was defiant, disrespectful, whatever you think it is that causes your job to be harder, how do you handle it?

CLARKE: Well, you can do it any number of ways. But you can do it both. I don't think it's a zero sum gain here. Look, when you work for the president -- when you work for a president, any president, you better have thick skin. And when you get into this, you talked about loyalty. There's a difference when it comes to loyalty. There's difference between the campaign and governing. And some of the things that Attorney General Sessions has done has caused angst in the White House, and that's just what happens. But at the same time, in the end, the president is going to win.

Why he's doing it publicly? Look, Donald Trump, President Donald Trump, he's a smart guy. When he does stuff, he does it for a reason. He knows it may not be very clear to us why he's doing it the way he is, but he is transparent. When he does this stuff behind closed doors, like his meetings with Comey, he got blasted by the media for some of the stuff that was leaked out of that, and some of the stuff that was said behind closed doors because it gets out anyway. So this thing will play itself out. But in the end, President Trump is going to win.

WILLIAMS: All right, Rachel?

CAMPOS-DUFFY: I think that's an interesting point you make. Look, I think this is resignation by humiliation. I think this is what the president is trying to do, to get him to resign. I understand the president's frustration. Imagine if Donald Trump had taken a hammer to his e-mails, and instead, he turned them over. He sees it's very unfair. If your last name is Clinton, you get away with it. And if your last name is Trump and you have a 15-minute meeting with a Russian, suddenly, you get senators calling for treason. So I understand his frustration. But Sessions has been a very loyal, good person to Trump. And I still think that he should be treated with the same respect that you treat people in your family. I get in a fight with my husband, I'm not going on twitter.

TIMPF: some people do.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: Some people do. But that's a sign of a very dysfunctional relationship.

TIMPF: Exactly. That's exactly what I'm saying. Yeah.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: So, yeah. But I think he deserves a little more respect. And let's not forget, maybe he doesn't like what he's doing on the Russia stuff and he should get the leakers. I am so proud of what Sessions had been doing with MS-13, and a lot of the things he's been doing to get rid of gangsters and felons that's in our country. So he deserves some respect for -- not just his support for the president during the campaign, but also for the many good things he's doing as attorney general right now.

WILLIAMS: Well, the saga certainly continues, and we'll see how that ends up. But coming up, Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, both on Capitol Hill, today, facing questions over the Russia probe. Can they dismantle the collusion accusation from critics? Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TIMPF: Jared Kushner back on Capitol Hill today. This time facing the house intel committee and its Russia probe. Unlike yesterday, Kushner did not address reporters, but Congressman Mike Conway, who's overseeing the committee investigation, spoke out afterwards.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE CONAWAY, R-TEXAS: We've just finished an almost -- 3 hour interview with Mr. Kushner. Found him to be straightforward, forthcoming. Wanted to answer every question that we had. And he was willing to follow up on any questions that we think of later that we didn't get asked this morning. And I thank him for his -- the way he conducted himself this morning in a very professional manner.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TIMPF: Also on the Hill today, Paul Manafort, the former chairman of the Trump campaign, who met behind closed doors with the Senate Intel Committee. Manafort also got a subpoena from the Senate Judiciary Committee to appear before it tomorrow.

Eboni, personally, I think that Paul Manafort is a very interesting piece of this puzzle. Because a lot of people say Trump's new to politics, new to politics. Paul Manafort, not so new to politics.

WILLIAMS: Yes. It's not just you, Kat. I think a lot of people remember when there was a little bit of an abrupt exit for Paul Manafort, who much to his credit really, I think, turned President -- well, then-candidate Trump's campaign around and put it, really, on a great trajectory to get him to victory. But he really kind of got missing in action. And so I think a lot of people kind of are very curious to see what Paul Manafort has to say and offer up around the Russia campaign relationship.

TIMPF: Absolutely. Eric, you wouldn't have any questions for Paul Manafort? Or maybe you'd have a few?

BOLLING: Oh, yes. Listen, if Paul Manafort did something that's wrong, that's fine. Find out, tie up the loose ends.

Again, just because Paul Manafort may or may not have done something wrong doesn't mean Trump was involved in it, too. I mean, you still need to tie this back to candidate Donald Trump before you go with the impeachment and all the other crazy stuff that's going on.

There's some news that came out today, I think, that's very, very important. It's being overshadowed, because all that anyone wants to talk about is the Trump family and the Russian collusion.

There's a guy named Glen Simpson, who started Fusion GPS. I've talked about it here quite extensively.

Finally, they're getting Glen Simpson in front of this House Intel Committee to talk about what happened. Fusion GPS is the company that hired the British intelligence officer to come up with that fake, bogus Russian dossier. All of it was discredited. But I want to know who paid him to do that? Someone had to pay Fusion to do this. And there had to be a reason for doing this. And I'd love to see. That's what -- you want to follow the money, that's a good place to follow the money to find out who was colluding with the -- with Fusion and the British intel officer.

TIMPF: I'm OK with asking whatever questions. I think that these two things are interesting to know. Manafort, I think, a lot of people say, Sheriff, that he might end up taking the fall for anything that may have been done wrong.

CLARKE: And that would -- that would be a -- that would be an injustice. All right. We all know what -- this is a big witch hunt. It's really what this is. This Russian collusion thing is being kept up to do nothing more than to delegitimize President Trump's constitutional win to become president of the United States.

This thing has gone on and on. It's more of the political theater I talked about earlier that goes on in Washington, D.C. It passes for something getting done. There is no smoking gun here. They may find a couple hiccups, and maybe that's -- you know, I don't know everything with the Manafort thing. Might be some hiccups, that he didn't report this, that he didn't say that. OK, fine.

This is not what we sent -- at ground level, I'm going to speak from again. It's not what we sent our members of Congress to Washington to do. They have, still, Senate confirmation that they have to take up. That's on the Senate side. But to steal a lot of the people's businesses, including -- I heard a stat the other day that by this time in his tenure, President Obama had 90 percent of the vacancies that he gets to fill. He had 90 percent of them complete. Trump -- President Trump is nowhere near that.

The American people are sick of this stuff. They do not care about the Russians. They care about jobs. They care about safe neighborhoods. They care about protecting this border. They care about sending their kids -- being able to send their kids to good public schools. Those are the things that we sent these people to Washington to do and elected this president to do, and this is being obstructed from inside by the deep sea.

TIMPF: And Rachal, I think that that's probably true that most Americans don't care. But at the same time, the reason I am -- have questions about this meeting isn't because I'm out to get President Trump. It's because the people at the meeting, or at least Don Jr., kept changing the story. And if you keep changing the story, I'm going to say, "Huh, why are you doing that?" regardless of who you are or what you're doing. That's just my being consistent on that issue.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: Your original question, Eric was, "Do you care about what Manafort did? And there's a reason why you have Wisconsin...

TIMPF: Would you have any questions for him?

CAMPOS-DUFFY: Would you have any questions? The point is, I would -- I'm fine with letting Mueller do an investigation. I don't need 1,000 other investigations from the Senate. Because you have two -- Wisconsin's in the House, by the way. The sheriff and myself. And I think part of the reason you guys bring us in, is because we don't live in Manhattan. We don't live in the Washington bubble. We are on the ground where the people are at.

And I'm telling you, nobody ever asks me about Russia except to say, "Why are they talking about Russia?" What people care about is exactly what the sheriff said. They sent this Republican Congress, Senate and a very out- of-the-box president to Washington, D.C., to get the people's work done. They want school choice. They want health care reform, so they they don't get knocked out of their insurance. They want jobs.

And actually, most of them are pretty happy with what they're seeing the president doing. They're just unhappy with all the weird -- looks like a circus to them. If you are sitting in Wisconsin, if you are sitting in Arizona, if you are sitting in any other place outside of the West and East Coast, this looks like a circus, because you're not talking about what people care about.

CLARKE: The only way -- the only reason maybe Donald Trump Jr.'s story changes is because of the way the media asks the question. They'll ask it ten different ways. And Donald Trump Jr. is not your typical politician. Either is Jared Kushner. And so they're not versed in the ways of spin, use of language. You know, remember Bill Clinton...

TIMPF: I mean, the number of people at the meeting is a pretty basic fact. There's really no way to spin a number. So that's the kind of thing that I think about.

BOLLING: The other fact was that this Russian attorney changed what the topic of the meeting, once she got there. And there's...

TIMPF: That's true.

BOLLING: ... unanimous consent that there was nothing about campaigns or ties to Russia that was ever brought up in the meeting. So why are we wasting all this time?

WILLIAMS: I actually agree with Rachel on this one. Let Robert Mueller do his job.

TIMPF: That's how I feel.

WILLIAMS: Let the Senate maybe work on a better health care bill. That's an idea.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: Hello.

TIMPF: Absolutely. Up next, some major developments overseas with China gearing up for a crisis along its border with North Korea and a U.S. Navy ship firing warning shots at an Iranian military vessel. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLLING: Welcome back to "The Fox News Specialists." Our specialists today are Rachael Campos-Duffy and Sheriff David Clarke. Let's continue the conversation right now.

A short while ago, the House overwhelmingly passed the vote to impose new financial sanctions targeting Russia, North Korea and Iran. The bill designed to punish Russia for its 2016 election meddling, and North Korea and Iran for their weapons programs. But a new assessment by U.S. defense officials may offer little comfort about their impact against North Korea. Because according to The Washington Post, the assessment says North Korea may be able to launch a nuclear-capable intercontinental missile by as early as next year.

Sheriff Clarke, a little nervous about these North Koreans. What do we do? What should we do?

CLARKE: It's interesting. But I think that President Donald Trump's strategy is brilliant: putting the Chinese in the hot seat about doing something with North Korea. They can play a huge role. They're propping up what little economy North Korea has.

But you know, you've got to ask yourself, how do we get to this point? We've had -- and I'm not just going to blame the last administration. But we've had several administrations. But we had eight years of the last one, of just thinking you could ignore North Korea, and they'll go away, like they're a pesky fly, or you could pay them off to behave.

And then Kim Jong-il, that little dictator there, took that money that was meant for good purposes, humanitarian purposes, and rebuilt his military with it.

So now you have this situation where, you know, it's thrown into Donald Trump's hands, President Donald Trump. He made it clear, he's going to do something about reigning this guy in, doing something about their dangerous nuclear capabilities.

BOLLING: Rachel, I noticed that they lumped the Russian sanctions with North Korea and Iran in there, because they needed all three of those in there to get that bill through.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: Right. And I think a lot of that had more to do with the fact that so much congressional authority had been taken away during the Obama administration. This is Congress taking back its own authority.

I will note: China has put on security -- they deployed forces on the border between them and North Korea. So that's an indication that they know these guys are crazy. It's too bad they're enablers and not doing more.

Hopefully, you're right, Sheriff Clarke, that the things that Donald Trump is doing is going to work. But it sounds like we've got some, you know -- it's a really tough issue.

CLARKE: China has another vested interest in this, too. If some military action is taken by the United States, there's going to be a flood of North Korean refugees...

TIMPF: Exactly.

CLARKE: ... across the border into China. That's why China is shoring up their border.

TIMPF: Exactly. China has a vested interest for this not to escalate into war. The tension is OK. In fact, the tension, they kind of like it. They like being able to use it as leverage. And of course, there's economic issues with being able to keep trade open and all that. But if this is a full-scare war, they're the last people that want that, for the reasons that you explained. Refugee crisis. That would be a huge drain.

BOLLING: Here's my problem with this whole thing. The news came out today that they did this. I'm, like, we have three major foes, adversaries on the planet. We lumped them all into one sanction bill?

WILLIAMS: Right. And Eric -- and you know how I feel about sanctions. But I think you make a good point, that sometimes sanctions can be effective in some territories in a way that they're not against others.

BOLLING: This is a good example.

WILLIAMS: This is a perfect example. They do not work when it comes to North Korea.

And respectfully, Sheriff, I've got to disagree with you. I think at this point, I don't see any indication that tells me that, as much as we can identify the viable threats to China around what's going on in North Korea, I don't think they're taking it seriously whatsoever. They are completely enablers in every sense of the word, Rachel. North Korea could not be doing what they are doing right now without China's explicit help. We know this.

And they're ahead of schedule, Eric. When we talk about running out of time, it doesn't look more plain than next year, this capability being actualized.

BOLLING: You know what else? We just ran out of time for the block, because we have a very, very intense block coming up next. A newly- released search warrant deepening the mystery around the shooting death of Justine Damond by a Minneapolis police officer. So who better to get insight from that than our specialist, Sheriff Clarke, when we come right back? He's going to be all over it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WILLIAMS: New details in the mysterious shooting death of Justine Damond, an Australian national killed by a Minneapolis police officer earlier this month. Damond had apparently called 911 twice to report a possible rape and was shot and killed by responding officer Mohamed Noor at the scene.

A new court document obtained by Minnesota Public Radio revealed that a, quote, unidentified woman had approached the back of the officer's car and slapped it. Noor's partner, who was in the police car with him, told authorities that a loud noise startled them both before Damond appeared. Local authorities are under mounting pressure to find out exactly what led to Damond's death.

Fortunately for us, we have our own law enforcement expert here today. And Sheriff Clarke, bear with me here.

Typically, in a lot of these police killings, the standard, the legal standard becomes an officer's reasonable fear for their safety or life. A lot of times, though, recently, when we look at a lot of these killings, there tends to be a general default presumption by many people that someone must have done something to trigger that, you know -- pardon the pun there -- that reasonable fear.

Can you help us understand, absent -- there are a lot of facts here. That's why we call it mysterious. What that could have looked like that would have justified the killing in this case?

CLARKE: It's hard. But what I try to do when I talk about these cases, I actually talk a lot about them as -- I remind people, I do not have all the facts. Eboni, you mentioned some of the facts. But we don't have all of the facts.

WILLIAMS: That's correct.

CLARKE: I want to make it clear, I don't have all the facts.

I also want to remind people -- and here's where I can help in these situations. Remind people, let's not rush to judgment. There's a lot of unknown that everybody wants to know, that I want to know. But until this investigation plays itself out, we've got to be patient with it. I know that's hard to do, especially in the age of media here.

But a law enforcement officer really, they work and operate in a world of uncertainty, and it's very dynamic. I've heard this thing about the slap on the car. Again, that's just -- what appears in a newspaper aren't facts, per se. So -- and I've investigated these things, police officer use of force, as a detective with the Milwaukee Police Department. I've also investigated, as a lieutenant of detectives. So I've supervised police use of force scenes. Very complicated.

They have to look at all of the evidence. This is going to take a long time. And it's not going to sit well with people, the people in Minneapolis. This is a local issue here. I know that the Minneapolis Police Department and their political class will get this right. They'll get to the bottom of it. But until then, we're just going to have to be patient.

BOLLING: Sheriff, a couple of things that concern me. Listen, there's no one -- no one I know that does more pro-law enforcement than I am. I love law enforcement. I think they get a bad rap a lot of times.

Question: this officer discharges weapon. Am I understanding correctly, that this woman approached the driver's side. The shooting officer was in the passenger side. He shot through the car? Is that right? Am I understanding that?

CLARKE: That's what's reported in the paper. But as I reminded, I remind others, just because it was that way in the paper doesn't mean it's a fact. I'm not sure. That's what was reported.

BOLLING: Body cam was turned off?

CLARKE: Body -- problematic. I guess there's a lot that we have to learn and that we have to know. But it's not going to happen tomorrow. It's not going to happen by the end of the week.

WILLIAMS: That's a good point, Eric. Because the body cams were turned off in this case, and they've been turned off in quite a few of these high- profile cases we've seen lately.

Kat, do you think there should be some type of a -- I don't know -- penalty when that tends to be the case? When there's a jurisdiction that has an enforcement around body cams, but it just happens that they're turned off in these types of shootings?

TIMPF: Eboni, I think that could be a good idea. I think that's absolutely a necessary tool. Because I agree with you that people do make the assumption that someone must have done something wrong. If it's an unarmed person being shot, that's unacceptable. We do need to look at that. And body cams are this great tool. Have to use them.

CLARKE: But it depends on what the policy is. Different agencies...

WILLIAMS: Here, we know that they were supposed to have them on.

CLARKE: ... have different. Some say it's got to be on all the time. Some only say when there's a police contact.

WILLIAMS: Correct.

CLARKE: Don't know what the policy is. So that, again, we've got to kind of wait.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: I was going to ask you, Sheriff, both of these officers were rookies. Is that unusual, to have two rookies in the car? Or is there -- is it -- do you have a rookie and an old veteran experienced cop in there?

WILLIAMS: Experienced.

TIMPF: It's in the movies.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: How does that work?

CLARKE: We've had -- we've had this experience drain in the entire profession of policing over the last couple of years. Some of it has been aggravated by what's going on in the war on cops, where people have their time, and they go, "I'm done. I'm out of here."

So you have officers with 25, 30 years of experience that are leaving. You're forced to use young officers, put them together. It's not the ideal situation. What are you going to do if that's all you have? If your agency has nothing but people six years and less, or predominantly, you're going to end up with two inexperienced officers together.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: And my last question is, the victim apparently called saying there was a rape. And she came -- oh, we've got to go. OK.

WILLIAMS: We've got to -- unfortunately, they're wrapping me on this one, Rachel. So at this point, we've got to say good-bye to our "Fox News Specialists" here today, Rachel Campos-Duffy and Sheriff David Clarke. Thank you both so much for joining us.

CLARKE: My pleasure.

WILLIAMS: And stay with us, everybody, because guess what's next? "Wait, What?" Wait, what?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TIMPF: Time for...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Wait, What?"

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAMS: Oh, my gosh.

TIMPF: Great, all right. I'm going to start things off. We have a lot in mustache news today.

Henry Cavill, big mustache issue, because he's got to have the mustache for the next "Mission: Impossible," but they're reshooting scenes for a Superman where he can't have the mustache. So they're actually editing it out, and now some people on the Internet are adding it back in to see what Superman would look like with a mustache.

You have that?

See, mustache, no mustache. Is it time for Superman? Isn't it amazing how you don't actually have to grow a mustache anymore?

BOLLING: Might as well go with a beard if you're going to do the whole thing.

TIMPF: You can just get a fake one.

(CREW MEMBER ENTER WEARING FAKE MUSTACHE)

TIMPF: There you go, yes. You don't need to grow a mustache anymore.

BOLLING: Hold on. Come on.

(REMOVES CREW MEMBER'S FAKE MUSTACHE)

WILLIAMS: Oh, look at that.

TIMPF: What if Geraldo's mustache was CGI the whole time, and we just don't know what?

BOLLING: Geraldo's?

TIMPF: Yes.

BOLLING: That's real.

TIMPF: Yes, all right.

WILLIAMS: Yes, I've tugged on that.

BOLLING: That's the final one (ph).

WILLIAMS: All right. I want to thank both you, Kat, and Eric for both being a little bit less stressful of a cohost then my radio cohost, Curtis Sliwa, who I do love dearly but gave me a conniption this morning what he got arrested before our show and I almost had to fly solo.

Yes, there's Curtis right there, getting the cuffs on him by NYPD. He's trying to personally serve Mayor Bill de Blasio with a lawsuit. You see him waving it there. So that wasn't enough. When de Blasio refused service, Curtis then jumps in front of the SUV with the mayor in it and gets arrested for disorderly conduct. Thank you for that, Curtis.

BOLLING: I think you could add, tack on resisting arrest, if you want to.

WILLIAMS: He's been charged with -- you know what number of arrests this is for Curtis Sliwa? Guess. Take a guess.

TIMPF: No idea.

BOLLING: Twelve.

WILLIAMS: Seventy-seven. You're looking at No. 77.

TIMPF: Whoa!

WILLIAMS: But he's had that charge before.

BOLLING: Listen, I love Curtis. But can you stop wasting our time?

WILLIAMS: God bless you, Curtis.

BOLLING: I don't think we have time. I had a whiteboard. We're bringing back the whiteboard.

WILLIAMS: I miss the whiteboard. Yes.

BOLLING: This is all about health care very quickly. Well, you know what? We'll do it another time.

WILLIAMS: OK, it's a nice tease.

TIMPF: Well, I'm very excited for the whiteboard, so you should keep tuning in, absolutely. We'll give it -- you'll give it full, full time.

BOLLING: Yes.

TIMPF: All right. Absolutely. All right. That's all we have time for today. Sorry. Make sure to follow us on social media, @SpecialistsFNC on Twitter and Facebook. Remember, 5 o'clock will never be the same. "Special Report" is next.

WILLIAMS: Yes, it is.

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